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* Home What to Do About Collection Agency Harassment Collected by Mollick on July 18, 2009 —
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When the collector calls you an excessive amount of time per day that is one form of harassment. This
harassment can be stopped. You have protection under the law against certain abusive tactics that some
collection agencies employ. In the state of Texas, business solicitation calls can not be placed before 8
am or after 8 pm your time. That means that if a collection agency calls you before or after those hours,
its harassment. You have the legal right to hang up under this condition.
Another common ploy they use in harassment is to threaten you. This is very serious harassment. These
are some of the types of verbal threats they may use against you: saying that they will send out a police
officer, or telling you they will freeze your accounts. Any statement that they make like this has to be
lawful and they have to really intend to take action. If you receive this treatment you should check the
federal and state laws to see if they can make the threat good.
The government is the only “person” able to freeze your accounts. Don’t believe a collector when he
tells you he can do this. They may claim to be a lawyer and they better be one if they say they are.
Otherwise, the collector has violated a federal law. They use this tactic because it sounds very serious
and will intimidate a lot of debtors. Don’t let them intimidate you into forfeiting your right to being
treated correctly under the law. Do learn about your rights. They would have to have filed a warrant
and have a court order to bring you in from your home, which is usually not an option for them to
exercise.
The most basic way to stop harassment is to place a privacy manager on your phone. If anyone with an
800 number or other specific identity you don’t want calling you calls, then you can set it to make them
go through a recorded announcement before they reach you. You can also use caller ID to help screen
your calls. If you want to find more legal options for yourself, you can contact a lawyer in your area or
look up the information on the internet.
The first law to look for is The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. You may have the grounds for a
lawsuit. Before the collector can try to collect the debt, he must state that it’s an attempt to collect a
debt and any information attained will be used for that purpose. He also has to tell you that the call may
be recorded. You can record the collection calls too. Recording the calls is a good measure to take to
protect yourself in case the collector is verbally abusive, such as screaming at you, or cursing you. If
you do want to record them then you have to tell them you’re recording the conversation so it will be
admissible evidence of harassment in court.
Learn the federal and state laws concerning the collection of debts laws. That way you know what the
collectors can legally do when attempting to collect a debt. Share and Enjoy: * Digg * Reddit *
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Harassment
1 Comment to “What to Do About Collection Agency Harassment” You can follow all the replies to
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2. 1. Creditwrench's Gravatar Creditwrench July 18, 2009 at 1:58 pm | Permalink Your comment is
awaiting moderation. n
You need to practice what you preach. But what you are preaching is a great deal of false and
misleading information. For instance, That is false and misleading. Anybody can file a lawsuit, get a
judgment and garnishment and then freeze your bank accounts. They can do that even if you are on SSI
or a pension even though it is illegal for them to do that. They can do it and they do it all the time
because people don’t know how to defend in court.
While that isn’t a bad idea, why would anyone want to stop debt collectors from calling them? Those
phone calls are a valuable way to gather proof of illegal actions by debt collectors and if you are going
to sue one of them then you need proof of wrongdoing. The best way to limit the harassment and get
evidence at the same time is to visit and learn how to handle debt collection phone calls Not only will it
stop their harassment but will also put a stop to their even wanting to call.
Yes, it is illegal for them to threaten debtors with arrest for any reason but in order to make them pay
for their violations the debtor must file a lawsuit and has to be able to prove that the collector made
those threats. They also have to know who to sue. It isn’t hard to sue them in federal court and there is
no need to hire a lawyer to do it. But you need to learn the law and how to enforce your rights under the
law before you attempt to teach others. Obviously you know little about it.
Creditwrench 405 237-2174